What Might China’s Changing Investment Patterns Mean?

The drop in the amount of outward investment from China speaks in yet another way to the country’s broader economic and financial problems.

8/19/2025|Updated: 8/19/2025

Commentary

Outward bound investing by Chinese business—private, state-owned enterprises, and the state—has fallen off precipitously. To be sure, the data from Chinese sources are pretty sketchy, making any conclusions drawn from them tentative at best.

Milton Ezrati is a contributing editor at The National Interest, an affiliate of the Center for the Study of Human Capital at the University at Buffalo (SUNY), and chief economist for Vested, a New York-based communications firm. Before joining Vested, he served as chief market strategist and economist for Lord, Abbett & Co. He also writes frequently for City Journal and blogs regularly for Forbes. His latest book is “Thirty Tomorrows: The Next Three Decades of Globalization, Demographics, and How We Will Live.”